An Artfully Pared-Down Boutique for Forte_Forte, and Other News

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An Artfully Pared-Down Boutique for forte_forte

Since forte_forte first debuted in 2002 with a small collection of hand-finished T-shirts, the Italian label has blossomed into a beloved purveyor of artisan-made clothing in cheerful tones that reflect co-founder Giada Forte’s approach to knitwear. The brand operates boutiques in London, Milan, Paris, Madrid, and Rome, but now calls Los Angeles home in an artful Melrose Place storefront designed by Forte and art director Robert Vattilana. Much like the label’s other locations, the L.A. outpost reflects the sensibilities of its surroundings by means of a slick Modernist daybed affixed with golden studs, recessed ceiling fixtures that reference James Turrell and the Light and Space Movement, and two giant stones meticulously balanced atop one another that nod to Fischli/Weiss and the Palm Springs desert.  

A collectible toy store in China opens with a monumental installation as its core. 

An avant-garde retail concept selling collective toys has cropped up in Wenzhou, China. Conceived by Bloomdesign, the X11 flagship store is located in the Incity Mega shopping mall and features an architectural installation that blends modern and traditional Chinese influences.  Connected by transparent glass bridges, the suspended platform reinterprets common factory-style shelves and displays the toy collections like a museum exhibition.  

Russian troops have destroyed the world’s largest aircraft in the Ukraine invasion.

In addition to the thousands of lives lost due to Russia’s invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, the country has lost a proud symbol of engineering achievement: The Antonov AN-225 Mriya, known to aviation obsessives as the largest plane in the world. Originally created by Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s to airlift Soviet spacecraft, Ukraine restored the massive cargo plane in 2001 and it became a national point of pride, once carrying “the heaviest single piece ever flown,” Air Cargo News once reported: “A generator for a gas power station [in] Armenia, [it] weighed in close to 190 metric tons.” According to news reports, the beloved Mriya has been destroyed by the Russian military. 

Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty label plans to open a brick-and-mortar store in Brooklyn. 

Though Savage x Fenty has been tight-lipped about sales figures, the Rihanna-owned intimates brand has experienced propitious growth and plans to expand its footprint with a series of brick-and-mortar stores. The latest is coming to Brooklyn near the Barclays Center and in between the Park Slope, Boerum Hill, and Prospect Heights neighborhoods. Construction has begun and will take a few months to complete. “Retail will give us the opportunity to better serve our current members, as well as acquire new customers,” Christiane Pendarvis, co-president and chief merchandise officer at Savage, told WWD.

The Russian-owned Phillips auction house doesn’t expect sanctions to impact business.

Despite being owned by Russian luxury retailer Mercury Group, the Phillips auction house doesn’t expect foreign sanctions to impact its business. Mercury Group’s two owners, Leonid Friedland and Leonid Strunin, were not named by the U.S. and the U.K. as individuals whose assets will be frozen, though it’s expected the businessmen will face difficulties in the future. Last week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it would target Russia’s two largest banks—the Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia and the VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company—and impose “severe economic costs” designed to “isolate Russia from international finance and commerce.” The auction house issued a statement that “unequivocally condemns the invasion of Ukraine.” 

Beirut blast survivors are asking for damaged grain silos to be turned into a memorial.

The 2020 Beirut blast killed more than 200 people when a large amount of ammonium nitrate improperly stored at the city’s port exploded, sending shock waves throughout the city as buildings crumbled and more than 320,000 people were left homeless. The death toll would have been much higher had a series of grain silos not shielded parts of the city from the powerful blast. Even though locals are calling for the silos to be converted into landmarks, an engineering firm recently determined they’re slowly tilting and at the risk of collapse.

“After a series of seminars and discussions, we concluded there’s no structure that cannot be supported, practically and scientifically,” Soha Mneimneh, an urban planning researcher at the American University of Beirut’s Urban Lab, told Al Jazeera. “Whenever I see the silos, like just everyone else, we continue to relive the trauma. And we will continue to live this trauma if there is no accountability.”

Today’s attractive distractions:

MVRDV adds a hot pink rooftop and podium to Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut. 

Scientists propose that Tyrannosaurus had three species beyond just the “rex.”

Do you think Disney’s Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel is worth $5,000 a night? 

A former Filipino first lady’s secret stash of gems is being recreated as sculpture.